Evaluating the Web May 19, 2008

Task:  Work through the tutorial on Evaluating websites. Choose the best ’source’ or site from the three you used in the last task, then evaluate it according to the tutorial.  Write an annotation for the source which could communicate to a reader both your ‘judgement’ of the site according to what you have learnt from the tutorial, and also the following information:

• the reliability and authority of the site / source / article
• the main ideas or subjects discussed in the article
• the purpose for which the site was written (this might include any apparent external interest. intellectual motivation or contextual information)

Log entry:  My annotation: 

• McBride, M. (2008). Select-all delete: Endangered Species? in Melanie McBride Online. Accessed on 24 May 2008 from http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/04/28/select-all-delete-an-endangered-species/.
  • McBride suggests that new Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Twitter don’t give users sufficient control over their data. In particular, she argues that these applications are easy to sign up to, but that it’s often difficult to remove all of your information when you leave. mcBride also states that most social networking sites have a clause which states that they own the content you post on their site, which raises privacy concerns.
  • According to the ‘About us’ page and a Google search, the author is a Toronto based writer and educator on technology, media and culture. McBride also works as a consultant on new media content production. 
  • The website appears to have 2 objectives – education and advocacy. The author has made various critical and thought-provoking posts over a number of years. She also acknowledges alternative views in comments posted.
  • A Technorati search found 53 reactions by ‘authority’ and a del.icio.us search also indicated a range of links to the website.
  • Overall, I found the website to be a useful source of views on our use of the Internet.  

 

Task:  Compare your final analysis and annotation with the material you saved for the last task, and think about these questions:

1. In terms of your own future use, which ‘body’ of information (ie. the original ’snapshot’ of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?
2. In terms of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?

Log entry:  My reflections on evaluating the web:

1. For my future use, I’d prefer to keep both versions – the snapshot to remind me of the post (particularly if I’d forgotten the author, title or subject matter), and the annotated version to refer back to my analysis of the article.
   • The shorter ’snapshot’ version is more useful for tracking down information that I may forget at a later date.
   • The longer version is a good reminder of my judgements of the article, and once recorded would save me having to do that research and analysis again. The ‘metadata’ recorded for the snapshot version doesn’t provide the same depth of analysis.
2. The usefulness for an external user would depend on the purpose of the link.
   • If the purpose of the hyperlink was to list various articles on a particular subject, without any judgement on their merit, the snapshot version would be preferable.
     • The shortness of the snapshot version is a key advantage – as discussed below under WWW standards, most Internet users prefer concise content.
   • If users are seeking links that discuss the merits of different articles and make informed judgements about their arguments and the credibility of the author, the longer annotated version would be preferred. 

 

 

Searching the Web May 19, 2008

Task:   Make sure you have a meta searching program installed, such as Copernic or Sherlock. Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search with words of your choosing.

Log entry:  For this exercise, I chose terms used I’d researched for my concepts assignment - for concept # 9 ’Permanent Ephemerality’.  The terms I used were: Internet, persistence, ephemerality, permanence.

I used Google, which found around 1,050 hits (fairly small compared to a normal Google search). The first page of hits is shown below, with the first being my blog entry for the Concepts assignment! Other results are more mixed – some were references that I cited in my assignment, while others were completely off my intended topic.

  

 

Task:  Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three search engines (including one that will search the ‘deep web’ and repeat exactly the same search.

Log entry:  For this task I used the Copernic Agent Basic meta-search engine. Using the same terms as the previous exercise, it returned 36 hits.  The first few were paid advertsing, and the first unpaid term was unrelated to what I was searching for.  However, it did return some interesting hits that the Google search didn’t. On the whole, however, I found it annoying having to navigate between the ‘junk’ returns and those that were relevant.

Because the exercise using Copernic didn’t appear that successful, I also tried the Turbo10 search engine, which reportedly lists searches from popular search engines and the deep web.  It returned only 9 hits, and again the first appeared to be unrelated to the seach terms. This suggests that my choice of search terms could have been further refined.

 

An interesting feature of this search engine is that it includes screen shots of the pages next to the hit description. However, this isn’t particularly useful as the screen shots are very small. In addition, the summary information for each hit is very brief and doesn’t give you sufficient information about the web page it refers to.  While it did return one additional useful reference, the low number of hits and irrelevant returns mean that I wouldn’t be inclined to use it again.

 

Task:  Read Boolean searching on the Internet.  Think about how you would best search for the following:

• the biggest number of hits relating to these key words
• information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for!
• information coming only from university sources

Log entry:  My strategies to refine the search terms are listed below.

• To find the biggest number of hits relating to these key words – this is the strategy I adopted initially – i.e. to list all the terms, and to look for hits for any that return these words.
• To find information most relevant to what I want to look for – following the mixed results from my previous searches, which included poetry and theatre guides, I refined my search to exclude ‘art’ and ’performance’. This reduced my Google search results from 1,050 to 31. This approach still returned many hits that were off-topic, but the lower number of hits overall meant that these were more manageable to sort through. 
• To find information only from univesity sources – I added ‘.edu’ to the search terms. While this may also able to pick up iformation from non-university sources (e.g. schools), the number is likely to be small. This strategy returned 993 hits. Interestingly, all the hits found under the second approach (excluding ‘art’ and ‘performance) were also from .edu domains.

 

Task:  Choose the best three sources found in the previous task. Using any useful software, record this information on your computer  in the way that you think will be most useful to you in terms of preparing for your assignment (that is, in terms of how easy you will find it to access, retrieve, understand, contextualise, and recall why you saved it – and with what).

• URL
• author
• instution
• blurb / summary / screen shot (this can be a direct copy of an appropriate abstract or introductory paragraph on the site: but make sure you record and reference it as such)

Log entry:  I used Google bookmarks to record the information for this exercise.

This bookmarking system allows me to save the same bookmark under multiple topics. It’s also flexible enough to allow me to record metadata of the nature referred to above, and to search for any of that information. However, it doesn’t have more advanced features that some bookmark managers have, such as including screenshots.

I find that the best feature of this bookmarking system is its portability – I can have access to my saved bookmarks on any computer that has the Google toolbar downloaded. Because I use more than one computer for my university work, this feature is invaluable and makes me more inclined to invest the effort in maintaining and managing my bookmarks. 

The Information I saved in Google bookmarks is listed below:

1. Smith, A. (2003), In Support of Long-term access, in Council on Library and Information Resources.  Accessed 24/5/08 from  http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub126/smith2.html  Extract – ‘The central question that the papers address is whether or not the infrastructure in place for preservation is appropriate to the new information environment.’  
   • Saved under Net11-Module 4-permanent ephemerality 
2. Graham, P.S. (2000), Issues in Digital Archiving, in Preservation. Accessed 24/5/08 from http://web.syr.edu/~psgraham/pgsite/pglibwork/pgtexts/digarchiv2000.html. Syracuse University Library. Extract – ‘Most libraries are now trying to provide an ever-increasing volume of scholarly electronic information to their clienteles. Research libraries have taken on the provision, organization and preservation of information with the same long-term commitment made for print materials. It is an expensive, uncharted and difficult task.’
   • Saved under Net11-Module 4-permanent ephemerality 
3. McBride, M. (2008), Select-all delete: Endangered Species? from Melabnie McBride Online. Accessed 24/5/08 from http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/04/28/select-all-delete-an-endangered-species/ First para – ‘Select-all is one of my favourite user controls. It allows me to quickly move, archive or delete large volumes of data quickly and easily. It’s also a means of defining my ownership over my content. In an increasingly undemocratic web of surveillance, abuse of power and corporate control, I believe users deserve improved control over their data.’
   • Saved under Net11-Module 4-permanent ephemerality 

 

Tools for using the web May 19, 2008

Task:  Choose at lease two unfamiliar Internet tools/plug-ins.  Experiment with the programs. Think about and reflect on the processes of downloading software/programs from the web.

Log entry:  For this exercise I downloaded Copernic Agent Basic and Bookmark Buddy.

• Copernic – I downloaded this to help with later tasks utilising meta search engines and searches of the ‘deep web’. Other features include an ability to track changes in web pages. It came as part of a package that allows for a desktop PC search.
  • This program was less intuitive to use that other well-known search engines.
  • In adition, although it’s a meta search engine, I found that the range of search engines it utilises is fairly limited.
  • Overall, there doesn’t appear to be much benefit from downloading this program compared to using an online search engine that doesn’t require downloading – unless the extra features such as desktop search were valued.
• Bookmark Buddy – I downloaded this program to assist with organising references for my Concepts assignment. This program was very quick to download. It imported my Favourites from Internet ExpIorer into my favourties and its pre-populated categories.
  • I found the importing feature a bit ‘clunky’ – I’d like to have the ability to delete some of the pre-set categories.
  • The program is also in a very small window which can’t be resized
  • Its most annoying feature is the prompt that appears every time at login asking if I want to purchase it (there’s no ‘don’t ask me again’ option).

In general, I found the process of downloading the programs was fairly straightfoward. This is particularly helped by using ‘wizards’ that complete the installation process, and if the programs are fairly small and don’t take long to download.

In general I exercise caution when downloading software from the Internet, due to viruses and sometimes unintended impacts that downloaded software may have. I find that it’s worth downloading from a reputable site, such as Tucows. Websites with independent user reviews can also be helpful.